Many different types of wireless communication systems include base stations or access points. The base stations or access points typically include components for wirelessly transmitting and receiving information. The base stations or access points typically interact with wireless devices (such as mobile telephones and computing devices) to provide wireless services (such as wireless voice and data services) to the wireless devices. In this document, the phrase “base station” and its derivatives may collectively refer to base stations, access points, and other similar structures.
Wireless communication systems routinely engage in channel selection, where a base station selects a wireless frequency channel for use in communicating with wireless devices. Wireless communication systems also routinely engage in subframe allocation, where a base station selects a particular subframe in a frequency channel for use in communicating with the wireless devices. For example, a base station may monitor the interference present on each of multiple frequency channels and select the frequency channel that has a lower amount of interference. A base station may also monitor the amount of use of multiple frequency channels and select the frequency channel that is used less. Similar operations could be used to select a particular subframe in a frequency channel. In this document, the phrase “frequency channel” may be used to refer to an individual frequency or a range of frequencies, and the term “subframe” may be used to refer to a time period during which a frequency channel is used to transmit or receive data.